no-slurp ramen fork

So…if you have an extra 15,000 yen or so lying around (about $130), Nissin wants to sell you an electric toothbrush a fork! But this isn’t just any fork, it…um…makes your smart phone play a “whooshing” sound to cover up your slurping.

Yeah…so…at first, I thought it would “cancel out” your slurping a la noise-cancelling headphones, which would be pretty neat. But it turns out that it just plays a noise to “cover up” your slurping a la…a bathroom fan?

Different cultures have different norms, and I do tend to be a bit self-conscious about slurping too loudly if I’m eating ramen in a ramen shop with a lot of non-Japanese people around me. But given that this seems to be targeting people in Japan, it seems like the better solution might be for visitors and tourists to just learn to deal with the local norms?

If you really just gotta have one, get it soon: Nissin is only making 5000 of these gems.